Tadjudin Loss-Dumping Claim Is Nonsense, BofA Lawyer Says

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Sunny Tadjudin’s allegation that her
manager at Bank of America Corp. transferred a losing position
to her to increase his bonus is “complete nonsense,” the
bank’s lawyer said.

John Liptak, the manager, had the Indonesian distressed-debt assets in his portfolio from his previous job at another
bank, the lawyer Adrian Huggins said in Hong Kong’s High Court
yesterday. It was rational to transfer the assets to Tadjudin as
she was principally responsible for Indonesia at their group at
Bank of America, Huggins said.

Tadjudin, fired in 2007, is seeking HK$28.3 million ($3.7
million) in bonuses she says she deserves after generating three
quarters of the Asia distressed-debt group’s profits from 2005
to 2007. Liptak “engineered” her dismissal so he could take
over her profitable portfolio and avoid paying her a bonus, she
claims.

“Do you agree that it was perfectly rational, given you
were ‘Miss Indonesia,’ for you to have those assets in your
portfolio?” Huggins asked.

Tadjudin, a 50-year-old Chinese Indonesian, replied that
she handled projects outside of her native country and Liptak
had asked her to take over the Indonesian assets.

She claims she had discovered that asset prices of various
companies within the Asia Pulp and Paper Group were mismarked in
Bank of America’s books. Tadjudin said she reported this and her
evaluation for 2005 was lowered on the same day in retaliation.

Discrimination

Tadjudin didn’t accept Huggins’s suggestion the bank could
have reduced her evaluation because she missed her profit target
that year.

She accepted today that figures Huggins discussed showed
five out of ten members of the bank’s distressed debt group
globally had a better profit contribution than her in 2005,
providing a rational reason for her ranking to be altered.

Huggins asked Tadjudin yesterday if the bank’s motive in
the alleged loss-dumping incident was to benefit Liptak or due
to sexual discrimination, as she claims in a separate lawsuit.

“This is all part of the interlinked factual matrix,” she
said in response.

Tadjudin had said earlier that female employees of the
group she worked for were expected to take a back seat.

“I do not think it is uncommon in the investment-banking
industry to marginalize a woman in order to support a man,” she
said on Jan. 13.

Mark Tsang, a spokesman in Hong Kong for Charlotte, North
Carolina-based Bank of America, declined to comment on the case.

The case is Tadjudin Sunny v. Bank of America, National
Association, HCA322/2008 in Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance.
The discrimination case is DCEO4/2009 in Hong Kong District
Court.